


Between Stick and Stone

by teawill



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Freeform, belatedreichenbachfeels, imprecise metaphor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-27
Updated: 2015-01-27
Packaged: 2018-03-09 07:44:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3241763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teawill/pseuds/teawill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We have choices in life. Break or bend - both will cost you. </p>
<p>John has not allowed himself to break, he will not be broken. But it seems he's drowning all the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between Stick and Stone

**Author's Note:**

> This is an experiment with words. I know John would approve.

Stand straight.

A spine made from knocks and tumbles. A jaw that never wavers and has learnt all its lessons through fists and feet. The broken bones will not hold what was left over against you. Unalterable will. The world may try, might even come close.

But it will never break you.

*

This one was broken….at first. Kneecaps and hands grazed and sprinkled with glass splinters. Knowing only the sharp relief. The gentle piercing and steady rush. Like its makers it admires sounds and precision. The universal placement of each moment and molecule. Where it belongs. The thought follows that his life might always be a battle of belonging.

Then there is you. Wonderful you. Steady and firm. Not broken as he is. But he is only broken because as a child he only followed rules of logic and order. Now he believes in chaos and crime.

How does this make you feel? Your therapist asked once.

You don’t know (you know the answers – strong, powerful, wanted…needed).

*

But there are powers greater than you. Greater players in the game, and you are not so powerful after all - you are regulated to a pawn. It never bothers you. Never breaks you.

Stand straight as usual, but this time they say sit down.

You don’t.

*

Time passes and you think 'There is joy. Hell, so much joy in living.'

And he looks at you. He never stops seeing.

*

Then the end comes. You don’t break but you drown. You’re not sure which is better. To stay as stone and sink unbreakable beneath the weight of sorrow. Or to bend and…maybe – break. Be as a twig floating down a stream. Vulnerable to the current, but at least up from beneath the cold water for air.

The whole point of being whole, of being unbroken by whatever comes is to have the strength to fight for someone, to protect. Your entire being is exhausted. If only you could bend. If only you could let it go to grief and time. But your heart has always carried a small stubborn voice and it echoes, it repeats...

Who do you fight for? Who do you fight for? Who do you - you sink down, down, down beneath the darkest shade of black. Stone. 

But you are not broken.

*

Someday, something will stir. A shimmy of silver scale, a brush of a coat against your shoulder on a wet London street. 

*

It takes you a moment but you blink and come into yourself. You've been drifting recently. Aimless. Some part of you wants a sign. Baker Street is years behind you, like another life. 

"You alrite mate?" you ask the ruffled old man who'd stumbled against you.

He blinks at you, strange coloured eyes rheumy.

"I saw something and wanted to see if it was real." He replies, voice husky. He shakes his head and runs a hand with long thin fingers over his face. Finally, he sighs. 

"Take care of yourself" he says and continues to walk on.

You stare after him, even as he disappears from sight.

That night you return to 221B Baker Street.

*

You will see it against all odds, beneath soggy, tacked up posters. The rain melts them away and the yellow paint underneath rises up obstinately.

'I believe in S-' 

You don't need to read the rest. 

You're not broken. 

It's not the same as fighting a war but you know how to wait.

 

 

 


End file.
